


Behind closed eyes

by Napping



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt Tony, M/M, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 00:03:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15012308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Napping/pseuds/Napping
Summary: He couldn’t even remember anything really. A second he was in the battlefield, taking out an army of robots and in the next he was in the medical wing of the tower, two weeks later with a big blank spot in his memories.This blank began to fill, though. Every night his nightmares started the same way.It was less of a nightmare than a flashback, really. Or it felt like it anyway, Tony had trouble telling what was real and what wasn’t. But the beginning though, the beginning was always the same.And it shouldn’t be as terrifying as it was, but hell if Tony had ever felt smaller in his life.Or: Tony was possessed by a demon and is now haunted by nightmares about that time.





	1. Drawing a Blank

In retrospect, Tony guessed that the most scary part about it was how long it actually took the others to figure out that he wasn’t him. Then again he’d watched the footage. The one hour that the others hadn’t deleted of the time he was _away_ ; over and over again, anytime when the world around him began to crumble and he couldn’t tell anymore what was real and what wasn’t, he’d sit back and watch it all.

And it was terrifying. Tony had been taken and captured. He had been tortured and he had suffered. He had an open heart surgery without narcotics in a _cave_. There had been people who had literally cut out a part of him. But this. This footage, this experience was the one that took the cake.

Because yes, he had been held in a cave for three months of his life and that had more than just _sucked_. It was a nightmare on earth, but he had been him. He had made his decisions, he was awake and in control and he had been there.

He hadn’t been when he was _compromised_ — that’s what S.H.I.E.L.D called it at least. It sounded harmless. Sounded as if a lesser inconvenience had taken his focus off of work, but this wasn’t it.

Tony pressed his palms against his temples and took a shuttering breath, trying to keep his eyes open and not miss a second of the footage playing in front of him. He knew it by heart, knew every little thing that would happen in it but he couldn’t stop watching nonetheless. It wasn’t all of it either, the others made Jarvis delete a lot of it, saying it wouldn’t help his recovery.

Because there was _him_. He discussed why arrows are insufficient with Clint. It was _him_ who showed new Blueprints to Banner. _He_ was lying on the couch watching a Chinese soap opera with Natasha.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t him, not by mind anyway, but it really could’ve been. He squinted his eyes and let it all play all over again, needing to find the one mistake the creature made when trying to act like him. But he came up empty. If he hadn’t given up drinking, he’d be convinced that it was him but he was just too hungover to remember it.

But he hadn’t been drinking or anything else. He had failed, though. He was supposed to be the smart one; his brain was supposed to be the strongest part of him. Still it had taken Loki only one wave with his hand to make him possessed by some ancient who knows what and he hadn’t been able to fight it.

He couldn’t even remember anything really. A second he was in the battlefield, taking out an army of robots and in the next he was in the medical wing of the tower, two weeks later with a big blank spot in his memories.

This blank began to fill, though. Every night his nightmares started the same way.

It was less of a nightmare than a flashback, really. Or it felt like it anyway, Tony had trouble telling what was real and what wasn’t. But the beginning though, the beginning was always the same.

And it shouldn’t be as terrifying as it was, but hell if Tony had ever felt smaller in his life.

It always began with him walking though the tower. It wasn’t unusual, he lived here after all, but it still felt weirdly empty. As if somebody had taken all the life out of it. Though it looked the same, it felt completely foreign at the same time. As if somebody had taken every small detail of what made this tower to his home and changed it.

From there on the dream varied. It was like a blur between memory and a tv show. Like he saw something out of his own eyes but it wasn’t his body. He didn’t control it. But it was bad, no matter what exactly was happening, it never failed to make him wake up with a scream on his lips.

Tony blinked a few times and then looked away from the footage in front of him. He had seen enough but not what he was searching for.

He got up from his seat in the workshop and looked around. Everything seemed normal. DUM—E was rolling around in the corner chasing who knows what and the constant little humming sound was still there too.

“Jarvis? Is somebody upstairs right now?” Tony had struggled with it. Problems he would never admit to the others - it would only worry them and they’d see it as invitation to mother hen him — but he was scared. There was no other word to describe it then. He was downright, deep in his bones, afraid of being alone in the common rooms of the tower. He has too much struggle to tell what was real and what wasn’t as it was right now, and he didn’t want to risk it.

He couldn’t be in his own nightmare when he was awake too, he just couldn’t. 

_“Captain Rogers and Clint are eating breakfast in the kitchen as we speak, Sir.”_

Tony let out another shuttering breath and took the stairs. He needed the extra time to practice his grin on the way up. It had been a month. It seemed as if he was the only person who still felt uneasy around the others. Possession had been new for them; mind control yeah, but actual possession? No, that hadn’t happen to them before. Still, the rest of the team did come to terms with it rather quickly. The first few days when he was back were rough on all of them, nobody had really known how to act around Tony, what to say or do, but they had gotten over it.

He hadn’t.

He could hear them scream every time he blinked. Tony didn’t know if it was a flashback or just something this creature had planted into his head, but he could feel it.

He knew the rules here. Whatever somebody did while not being in control of him or herself was not his or her fault. This had sounded really reasonable to him, but now it didn’t. Not really anyway.

Tony wasn’t stupid, he knew that he hadn’t been at fault _but he needed_ _the blame_. He needed some kind of reaction, just something that would tell him that he really was back and that the others could see his failure too, but nothing.

And Tony faded a bit more, every time he blinked.

Sure enough, the first thing he saw when he walked into the kitchen was Clint on the counter, coffee pot in one hand and petting Lucky, who had his front paws next to Clint, with the other. Steve stood in front of the stove and scrambled eggs, smiling as if it was just downright the best leisure activity to make breakfast for others.

The first one to notice Tony though was Lucky, who jumped back to stand on all four of his paws and walk excitedly in his direction. Tony just petted one time over his golden ears and then went to Clint to take the coffee pot out of his hands.

“Barton, if you plan on drinking all the coffee, you have to _pay_ for all the coffee.” Tony filled one cup not making eye contact. It was easier to play a role when nobody could tell that he’s acting.

“I’m literally living with a billionaire why should I buy my own coffee?” Clint made a grabby hand motion to the coffee pot and sighed in relief when he had it back in his possession.

“Because said billionaire is not your mother and responsible for you,” Tony replied dryly and went over to Steve who seemed to fight the urge to give all the scrambled eggs to Lucky who sat down next to him, drooling on the floor.

“Good morning, Sunshine.” Tony leaned on the counter next to him, avoiding to step into Lucky’s drool puddle.“How was the morning run?”

Tony had heard when Steve had left at 5 in the morning like some sort of maniac. Then again the fact that Tony himself had been awake stopped him from saying anything about it.

Steve hummed and turned around, throwing a piece of egg to Lucky, who swallowed it whole.

“Steven, stop feeding Pizza Dog,” Clint huffed out through a mouth full of coffee, ”He’s spoiled enough as it is.”

“Look at you, talking about spoiled, sitting in a kitchen in which you let others cook for you, in a tower you don’t pay rent for, drinking coffee that’s not yours,” Tony shot back and then turned back to Steve with a satisfied grin when all that Clint answered was a motion of him zipping his lips.

“It was a good run, I beat Sam again.” Steve sounded more proud than he should be considering the fact that he low key cheated in running. Like, it wasn’t his fault that he was a super solider but still. “I saw there were lights on in the workshop when I left. Didn’t you sleep, Tony?”

Busted.

“Nah.” Tony smiled widely and waved it off, “I had to go over some details about the news SI tech, I kinda lost my feeling for time there.”

Steve looked Tony up and down, obviously not believing him one bit and considering whether or not to let it go. For a second he looked as if he would say something but then he settled for his disappointed/worried look and turned back to put the eggs on five plates.

“How are you, Tony?” He asked though. His tone was not in accusing, but rather actually interested.

The “I’m fine” came as easy to Tony's lips as his screams when he woke up every night.

Steve obviously decided to let go the second lie today too.

“Just make sure to get a bit of sleep after breakfast, you look like a ghost.”

Tony nodded, not adding that he felt like one, too.

 

_He walked through the tower. It was dark but bright enough to see; see that something was off. And it was silent, so damn breathtakingly silent. He walked over to Natasha’s room, past closed doors and empty hallways._

_Natasha was hunched over her desk, reading? Typing? He wanted to ask but he couldn’t. Could move his mouth and speak. He was trapped._

_Natasha had noticed him instantly sitting up now, turning to him. Not quite a smile playing around her lips but the corners of her mouth rising a bit._

_“Hey, Tony, what can I help you with?” She sounded relaxed. This normally filled Tony with warmth because he knew what she had been through. He had done the research, had read the files and had seen the horror. He knew that she hadn’t had any reason to feel comfortable for a long time and seeing her now, black fuzzy socks on her feet, hair tucked into a lazy ponytail was normally one of the best things about his day. Expect right now he didn’t feel anything deep inside of him but the weird feeling of being lost._

_“Can you still remember all the people you have hurt?” Tony felt his face pulling into an ugly smile, even though he was sure that this wasn’t his expression right now. He was sure his face should just feature a hanging jaw, rambling apologies because what the hell. Why would he say that? He didn’t mean to say that. He knew that Natasha had many regrets, he knew that she suffered through trauma just like the rest of them and one of those was that she had done many things, many bad things she tries to make up for._

_“Excuse me?” Her voice was hard as steel and cold as ice. Tony felt the need to flinch but didn’t. He couldn’t do anything in fact. His breath quickened while his body stood perfectly still. “Nothing, I was just checking,” he heard himself answer, voice dripping with dark humor. Natasha just squinted her eyes, turning away from him slightly, thoughtful expression on her face._

_“Don’t be an asshole, Stark, not about this.”_

Tony woke up with a silent scream on his lips and sweat on his forehead. He didn’t know if it was real but it felt like it. He had never been more relieved to wake up, but still so damn terrified. He could tell this was more than just what his brain tried to tell him was potentially real.

It had felt like memory coming back to him and it was awful. It hurt. Tony sat up and stretched his head, how could Natasha even still look at him? It was he who has told her that, who asked her about the one thing that he _knew_ she truly hated about herself right to her face.

And the worst thing? She didn’t immediately know that it wasn’t him. Could that even be? Could she really not tell the difference? Did he really behave like an asshole this often that she couldn’t tell when it was him speaking and when it was an actual _demon_?

Tony didn’t sleep a wink for the next two days. He also didn’t leave his bedroom, afraid what he might meet out there. Not trusting himself to confront Natasha about it and have her confirm what he already knew deep down.

The team expected him to act like a heartless asshole. They knew him and this was the behavior they were used to.

He also couldn’t shake the thought that maybe this was it. Maybe that was the reason why they had deleted so much of the footage. To make sure he’d never know how much they had let slide and just passed off as something 'Tony would do'.

He had never felt more alone in his life.

It was Steve who dragged him out of his room in the end and made him sit down with all of them at the dinner table. Somebody had ordered pizza in but it all tasted like paper to Tony.

“Stark, how do my new wings look, man?” Sam addressed him over half of the table, looking excited like a little child. Wings, right. Something Tony should have been working on instead of wondering what the rest of his fellow members thought of him.

“They’ll look the same, dear, but they’ll work better,” Tony answered, not looking up but still trying to maintain his posture. He needed to be reasonable about this. Fact was that he didn’t know if any of that what he dreamt was real. It might feel that way but this didn’t prove anything.

Still, the ongoing chatter sounded like mockery to him. Everything he heard in a loop in his head was Natasha telling him over and over again to not be an asshole, _at least not about that._

He looked up and met her eyes right across the table. He didn’t flinch per se but it was _really_ close. Her green eyes sparkled, she seemed relaxed and comfortable but there wasn’t her little not-smile going on. She just looked him up and down as if in thought and then slapped Clint’s hand away from where he was trying to steal a piece of her pizza, without as much as breaking eye contact.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when she cornered him in the kitchen after dinner, but he still flinched when he turned around from the sink and was nose to nose with her.

“You’re acting off.” There was no questions and seriously there wouldn’t have been an answer. Yeah, he might have tried his best to hide that. Even though everybody else seemed to have forgotten about how he was possessed not that long ago, because he didn’t.

He could see them try their hardest to not double check him when he walked into a room and really, they didn’t seem that bothered by it anymore, things like that just happened. But he felt different. He hadn’t been mind controlled, he hadn’t been _unmade_. He had literally been pressed on pause and came back to not knowing what had been going on, nothing but one little video clip and team that was just acting one _tick_ too relaxed around him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Nat,” Tony eventually answered to which she only raised an eyebrow.

And hell did he want to spill all the beans. Wanted to tell her that for the past nights, when he did get sleep of exhaustion after all, all he could see were blurry images without any context or sense. That for the past nights all he heard over and over again was a voice whispering inside his head.

Asking him if he was _seriously still yelling_?

_They cannot hear you. They can’t tell you’re gone or they just don’t care._

But last night he had seen her. He had seen Natasha and had heard what _it_ said to her and she hadn’t even blinked. Hadn’t shown any doubt that it hadn’t been him even though they were supposed to be friends.

He wanted to tell her that he couldn’t even tell if that was worse than the voice whispering. Because that voice just reminded him that he had been awake through all of it, he had obviously tried to fight it and now he couldn’t remember any of that. It had just erased his memory and even though it was coming back, who said that this was the only thing this demon took from him? What if it was still inside of him, just hiding? Or still making decisions while leaving him feeling like he was in charge?

Tony suppressed the urge to scream out loud right in her face and went for an easy smile instead.

“No, I’m serious. I just haven’t slept that well but that’s nothing coffee won’t fix.”

He smiled one last time at her face, in which no emotion was showing but a clear _I don’t buy your bullshit._

Oh, how he wanted to tell her. All his thoughts or just an _I am sorry_ because he was. He didn’t know what was happening to him right now but he knew that. He knew that he had never felt more guilty in his life.

 

_He was walking through the tower. It was Clint’s floor, he could tell. Around the blurry edges of his eyes he could see around 50 different dog toys with an L on them, as if they had any other spoiled rotten dog here and Lucky had to claim his belongings._

_Said dog was sprawled out on the couch, obviously content with ignoring the No Dogs On Furniture rule. Clint sat on the floor in front of him, cleaning his bow._

_“Hey, Tony.” Clint threw an easy smile over his shoulder and locked eyes with Tony for a second. And for a tiny moment Tony hoped that Clint would see him._

_See him struggling, screaming and begging. But then the archer just turned around and continued the cleaning. “You ever think about your brother?” Tony sat down on the couch, pushing Lucky from his place in the process. Tony had never wanted to just be dead more than right there. He couldn’t do anything about the way Clint tensed up and let his smile slide off his face. Starring at Tony with his jaw hanging slightly open, as if he couldn’t believe Tony would bring something like that just casually up. And he was right to doubt that. Because Tony didn’t want to bring it up, he just wanted to be able to fight his way back to be the one in charge but he couldn’t. It just hurt when he tried._

_“Barney?” Clint asked sharply, a rhetorical question, obviously just meant as a warning. An easy out. Clint drew a line and Tony clenched his eyes together, begging the thing to please not cross it. But Outside Tony stayed right how he was, teasing grin in place, ready to cross every boundary._

_“Yeah, you killed him? How did that feel?”_

_Clint stood up slowly, looking Tony up and down. Inside Tony wanted to think that it was because he couldn’t believe it was actually Tony saying that. But then Clint just nodded in an ugly way, more to himself than Tony, as if he was not really surprised about this conversation. “You know this isn’t how it went. Why are you asking that right now?”_

_Tony clenched his hands into fists in the inside while his body made a motion like he was casually looking at his finger nails._

_“I’m trying to get to know you inside and out.” Tony felt an ugly smile creeping up on his face, “We’re friends after all. I am honestly just genuinely interested. Like, I felt really bad for killing Obi and we weren’t even related. And he betrayed me first so —”_

_“He tried to kill me. Barney had left me to die and you know that, stop.” Tony had never seen Clint with such an angry but completely devastated expression before. He looked as if he were ready to cry. Tony felt his grin widen, he knew that the ‘this is gonna be fun’ - thought was not his own._

_“Oh, anger I see, huh.” Tony didn’t even want to start thinking about why this thing in him knew all this. Clint just shook his head over and over again as if he was trying to hunt a memory like an annoying fly away._

_“Stark, I am serious. Drop it.” Clint wasn’t often serious. He had been through hell and back, his childhood, his father and the circus tried to make him into a bad man but he wasn’t one. He had fought for others and himself. He had made sacrifices bigger than Tony’s fortune and he was still such a lighthearted person. A good friend. Considering. Nice but in the most asshole way. But also trusting. He had trusted Tony with all this about his brother. And here Tony was, throwing it right back in his face._

_“Why are you being so sensitive all of the sudden? Didn’t they teach you how not to be like that in the circus?”_

_There was no way. There just couldn’t be a way that Clint really thought that Tony would say that. But he did. He looked so angry and hurt, probably not thinking rationally anymore. Tony laid his head in his hands and tried to not listen to it anymore. Outside Tony just continued to grin at Clint in a silent challenge._

_“I don’t what has gotten into you but they certainly taught me at the circus how to shoot this arrow right throw your eye socket from any distance so I’d say run fast, before I forget who I am.”_

_Tony nodded and Inside Tony nearly cried in relief; this had been bad but at least it was over now. Yeah, premature celebration had never been a good idea._

_Tony turned around when he was at the door way, looking back at Clint with nothing but dark humor. “And who are you exactly? Still a murderer?”_

Tony woke up with another silent cry dying on his lips. He was breathing roughly, felt as if there wasn’t enough oxygen on this earth to ever fill his lungs again.

Memory or made up? _Memory or made up?_

Tony continued to breathe harshly, looking around in the dark, searching for something to ground him, but there wasn’t anything. Nothing made sense.

Even less so since there wasn’t a logical way to think all of this through. There was no explanation for any of that. It seemed made up because why? Why would the demon chose to possess him to torture others? Because that had been exactly what was happening?

Tony pointedly ignored the little voice inside his head telling him that it had always been worse for him to see others hurt than to be hurt himself.

Tony wanted nothing more than to seek out Clint. Tell him that he didn’t mean it, that he literally didn’t say any of that. He wanted to apologize to Lucky, too. To the whole team.

He wanted to beg them to just tell him the truth because Tony felt more and more as if he was losing his mind. It had felt so real, everything about his dream felt like he was reliving a moment of his life, and he just couldn’t make himself believe that it wasn’t real.

Still, he had a big smile on his face when he joined the others, all sitting together on the couch sipping beers.

Steve was the first one to notice him, immediately his eyes lit up and he made a bit of space next to him on the couch. “Hey, nice of you to join us.”

Tony only nodded as an answer, avoiding to look any of them in the eye. As he sat down, the conversation carried on but he didn’t do anything to be included in it. He just sat down and observed. He looked at Clint, sitting cross legged on the other side of the coffee table, Lucky having his head on his thigh, his one eye on Tony.

Would Clint answer him honestly if he asked about it? It’s always hard to tell when it’s about Clint. He could sit on the floor petting his dog and in the next second shoot an arrow through an eye socket. Tony took a deep breath and decided to just go for it. If it ended up with a black eye he at least knew that he deserved it.

“Legolas? Could I speak to you for a second?” His voice sounded strained, he barely recognized it himself. Unfortunately wasn’t he the only one who realized how off he sounded, Steve immediately turned around and raised an eyebrow.

“Are you okay?” He asked, so damn concerned that Tony had to bite his lip to not tell him that he didn’t deserve the worry.

“Yeah, yeah. I just need to talk to Barton for a moment.”

Clint only nodded and looked him up and down, before shaking Lucky awake and then standing up when his dog moved his head away from his leg.

“Yeah sure, no problem, T. But I tell you if it’s about the coffee, I am not the only one drinking it, okay? I don’t have a coffee problem, not a serious one anyway.”

Clint stepped after him into the kitchen, face devoid of his normal easy grin, obviously catching up that this was more serious than coffee.

“You look really sick. You sure you’re alright?” Clint asked first thing after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence in which Tony just leaned against the counter and was quiet.

He hadn’t thought this through, all he knew was that he needed somebody to be straight with him. The rest just ignored what had happened but he was losing his grip on reality. He needed somebody to be honest, to tell him who he hurt, maybe not physically but emotionally.

“You’re not blacking out on me, are you?” Clint walked a few steps closer but kept his respectful distance, not coming too close to Tony.

“Did I hurt you?”

Nailing it. Just a bit more vague next time please.

"Huh?”

Tony nodded and his head in his hands, trying to breath and find a clear thought. All he saw over and over again was Clint’s pained expression.

_Please let me go._

He took a few more shallow breaths, feeling his heart beat rising.

_They cannot hear you. They don’t want to_.

Flashback or still there? Tony blinked his eyes open and looked around him, seeing nothing but blurry forms. His next breath got stuck in his throat, leaving him coughing and sinking onto the floor, hand over his arc reactor.

"No, no! _Let me go_.”

Tony didn’t know if it was his own voice, it sounded too far away for it to be. He choked on another breath, trying to find something in his vision that wasn’t blurred around the edges but came up empty.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to read your comments. :-)'
> 
> \- Nick

“Tony? Tony. I gonna need you to breath for me, okay?”

He didn’t know where he was. There was a warm body against his back, which was odd. All he remembered from his off time was the cold. It had always been so unbearably cold. He suppressed a shutter and choked out another cough.

“You are in the tower.” He always was. This was always how it started. He began to fight against the arms around him, pressing his eyes closed, wishing he had to energy to cover his ears. Everything was so loud around him.

“You are safe. You are you. We are in the kitchen, can you smell that?”

He took serval shallow breath till he was finally able breath in deeply. It smelled faintly like burned pancakes and pizza. He nodded a few times. He was here, he could smell it.

He leaned back, suddenly too exhausted to keep himself up and sank back into Steve’s arms, who took a deep breath himself.

“See? You’re okay.”

Tony didn’t have the energy to tell him that he wasn’t okay at all and he couldn’t think of the time when he last was. He just nodded, not wanting to lie.

“You need a break, Tony. I’ll bring you to your bedroom, okay?”

Tony tried to hold on to the warmth in Steve’s voice, something that has always given him more comfort than he was willing to admit. He nodded again, even though he wanted to yell. Wanted to tell Steve that the last thing he needed was sleep, because he couldn’t remember the last time when sleep had actually brought him peace.

Steve put one arm around his waist, keeping Tony up while they stumbled to his bedroom. They walked past Clint who looked at him with a worried expression, obviously trying to keep himself from asking what the hell had happened.

Tony wouldn’t answer him honestly anyway.

Steve let him down on his bed, standing by the foot of the bed a bit longer, looking down at Tony. He looks back at Steve, who is obviously pretending not to be worried.

“Do I need to stay?” It wasn’t a demand. It didn’t sound annoyed either. It sounded genuinely concerned as if Steve would jump at the chance to do whatever it took to help Tony.

Tony nearly scoffed, he didn’t want to be fixed. He needed to find out if he wasn’t beyond broken first.

He hated how Steve looked at him as if he was like the moon pulling the tides. As if something here too would be broken if he didn’t accept the offered help.

“I’m all right.” This was, after all, the easiest lie for him to tell. He had used it so often already that it came naturally through his lips.

Steve scoffed silently and then shook his head, his eyebrows pulled together in disappointment. "You don’t seem too sure about that one.”

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” Tony answered eventually. The look he received in response was almost insulting in its incredulity.

“So there is something to worry about?” Steve hesitated but then sat down on the edge of Tony’s bed. “Do I need to call Banner?”

“Steve, I’m tired,” Tony sighed, suddenly feeling as if there wasn’t enough oxygen for both of them in his room.

Steve nodded, obviously anything but convinced. “Promise to call me if you need something?”

Tony smiled slightly at him, nodded another time, knowing very well that he’d break the promise the second Steve left his room.

Which he didn’t consider was the silence that would stretch around him the second the door closed behind the super soldier. Tony wondered if it was worse than feeling like he was suffocated.

The silence spread out all around him, making it dark and ugly. He could taste his fear in the back of his mouth.

Tony closed his eyes and pulled his knees to his chest, making himself as small as possible. He said all the colors of his favorite cars out loud.

_Red. Black. Orange. Blue. Red. Black. Orange. Blue._

He said it again and again until he forgot the silence that was pressing down on him.

_Red. Black. Orange. Blue. Red. Black. Orange. Blue._

Until he remembered who he had been before he hadn’t been himself. Until he knew again who he was without the help of Steve Rogers.

_Red. Black. Orange. Blue. Red. Black. Orange. Blue._

Until he passed out.

_He walked through the tower. Looking at the art pieces Steve had hung on his wall. So many faceless persons. Tony wondered if this was what he would see if he looked in a mirror right now. Then it came crashing down onto him. Steve’s walls. The thing was about to talk to Steve. Tony whimpered silently, not even beginning to hope that the demon hadn’t heard him. He could feel his face pulling into a smile, one that hurt him everywhere for no reason._

_“Please don’t talk to Steve, please. I — please.” Tony whispered over and over again, not daring to scream. Not daring to make things worse._

_“This is gonna be so much fun.” Was the only answer he got. He could only flinch back and nod resignedly. He had hoped for only one person who wouldn’t hate him after this. But now, would Steve even be able to bear the sight of him after this?_

_Steve was sitting on his couch, open notebook on his lap, drawing. He spoke up without looking away from his work. “Tony, hey. I actually wanted to talk to you.”_

_Tony sat down beside him, biting his lip on the inside, wishing this to be over._

_“I’m going to enjoy breaking you with this face.” The demon hushed under his breath, to which Tony let out a painful hopeless sob, but Steve only looked up from his notebook, raising his eyebrows._

_“What was that?” He sounded genuinely bewildered as if he honestly hadn’t understand what the demon had told him._

_“Nothing. What did you want to talk about?” Tony wished he could do something to get this smile off of his face. Not his face — he bit his teeth together, this was hell._

_“Clint.” Steve lay his art supplies in the coffee table and turned to him with a serious expression, obviously not bothering with small talk, “He said that you seemed really off. That you’ve talked to him about his brother and got really offensive?”_

_He sounded sterile and professional, like a leader of a team should be. Tony cheered internally though. He seemed off alright. The others had realized something was up and maybe they would fix it._

_He didn’t seem to be the only one to realize that, though. Tony breathed harshly, he stood back up internally, stopped begging. He straight up told the demon off. Because he was good at making bad decisions and they others realized something was up. The thing couldn’t punish him more with being downright mean to the others, they would know. At least he hoped so._

_He didn’t think the thing would stop playing all together. He felt his body lean back onto the backrest of Steve’s couch and stare right into Steve’s concerned blue eyes. Raising an eyebrow in an obvious challenge. He waited for Steve to draw a line so he could cross it. Tony began to scream again, to which his outside didn’t even bat an eyelash._

_“I can hear him scream you know?” The thing said to Steve, right to his face. Tony’s jaw nearly hit the ground right in this second. He had a feeling where this was going. He had many ideas where this thing was leading this conversation and he didn’t like a single one of them._

_“What?” Steve leaned a bit closer to him, looking him up and down, like he was losing his mind. And yeah, Tony got that. That was exactly how he felt, too. “Are you having nightmares again?” Steve sounded as if he was ready to fight any nightmare away from Tony all by himself._

_The demon chuckled with Tony’s voice, ugly and cold. “Yeah, he does. He has nightmares all the time but this is not what I am talking about.”_

_Steve now pulled back slightly, bringing more distance between himself and Tony, biting his teeth together. Tony could see the muscles of his jaw working._

_“What are you talking about? Who are you?” Steve got up slowly as if he was talking to a dangerous animal. Tony couldn’t blame him; he himself couldn’t tell if the thing was about to bite Steve’s head off or not. And hell, did Tony hope he wouldn’t. He just wanted Steve to be safe. He’d give everything to be able to interfere right now, to just do anything._

_“Please don’t. Let him be,” he begged. Hoped that the thing would listen to him._

_It didn’t. It just got off of the couch too, standing in front of Steve now, opening his arms as to present something._

_“It’s really funny actually. Begging anything, promising anything, if only I’ll spare you. He sure loved you a lot.” Steve’s face twisted slightly. It was only a piece of a second that something changed in his stony expression, but Tony saw it. And he fell back down on his knees again, on the inside. Trying to get his eyes to close to not see Steve’s expression right now, not hear what he would say to that because Tony had tried. He had done about anything to make sure that Steve would never find out about this. And yet here he was, literally seeing his world crumble apart._

_Tony on the outside though, he smiled again, downright dirty. Knowing exactly what he had just done._

_“You never even knew, did you?” The little laugh that escaped his lips sounded like a threat in his ears. That was it, he knew it. There was no coming back from this. Steve, though, Steve just starred blankly, backing away slowly, obviously in search for his shield._

_“Let him go,” he hissed, not breaking eye contact, even though Tony wanted him to. He didn’t want to see Steve’s eyes, not after that._

_“I thought you might say that.” The creature didn’t make any attempt to stop Steve from getting his shield. Tony wished he could count that as a win._

_“Yeah? Then do it,” Steve bit out, finally gotten to his goals and now holding his shield in front of him, not quite as an attack but definitely ready to protect himself if necessary._

_“Stab him.” Steve skipped a breath and just stared at him with his mouth ajar._

_Tony though, his body anyway, just walked up to Steve, stopping right in front of him._

_“You heard me. I’m in his body. He is mine now; the only way to get rid of me is to get rid of him.”_

 

The scream that punched its way out of Tony got muffled by his violent sobs that shook through his body. Only one thing clear in his mind.

Steve knew. Steve knew about how he felt and he never said anything. He hadn’t come to Tony about it, never seek the talk. He knew and he ignored it.

Tony sat back heavily and let out a breath, trying to get his thoughts in order. This wouldn’t be the only thing he’d failed today.

He stared blankly at the door of his bedroom. He didn’t doubt that it hadn’t been real. But at the same time he just hung onto the hope that it had been. Because there was no other explanation to it why Steve hadn’t said anything about it but that he just wanted to forget it. And Tony couldn’t even think about that right now. He was in a burning pain ever since he got back to himself after Doctor Strange had pulled it away from Tony’s body.

He couldn’t add that to this pain, too. He had already known that Steve didn’t feel the same way about him. It was why he had never said anything about it before. But actually knowing it was still something completely different. Now he had the proof he never wanted.

So of course he did what he did best and avoided it. He locked himself into the workshop and the only thing he succeeded at in the next few days was to not fall face first into a glass of scotch.

He had Sam’s new wings finished before the first evening and updated those within the next 5 hours a total of 7 times.

His thoughts were running miles per minute, he lost them a while ago, just heard bits and pieces now and then, not liking one single thing about it.

Even though he still had trouble telling what was really happening and what of all this mess was actually reality and what was not, one thing was certain. Steve Rogers knew about his feelings for him. And if Tony was good at one thing then it was avoiding things that really needed to be addressed.

He just needed to convince himself some more that he actually really didn’t want to talk to Steve about it, because right now everything in him yelled to just go and talk, but he couldn’t.

Tony avoided Steve for a total of 2 weeks in which he only slept a few hours every third day, circles around his eyes so dark you could think he was wearing shades.

Which was probably also why he hadn’t checked with Jarvis if somebody was awake at 5 am when he went to get coffee.

Stupid.

This was how he found his way chest to chest with Steve, coffee cup burning his right palm. “You’ve been avoiding me.” Right to the point. Steve didn’t wear his usual worried but relaxed

expression. He just looked bewildered and really, really done with Tony.

“What?” Tony would deny that it came out more like a shriek than anything else to his dying day,

“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’m so good at that, you wouldn’t even have noticed.”

Steve raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, causally leaning back against the counter and crossed his arms.

“I noticed,” he answered. Tony only stared down into his coffee cup as if it could give him the easy out he needed so badly.

Tony looked up from his coffee, not knowing what to say to that. Yeah, of course it had been a lie but it was unusual for Steve to call him out.

“It’s nothing, Cap. I was busy.” Tony had aimed for a casual tone but missed by a mile. He hoped that Steve would pretend that he hadn’t.

“It’s not nothing, Tony. I know that look. Something is bothering you, and you can talk to the others just fine so it had to be me.”

Tony wished Steve would stop looking more sad than he felt. He hated that he knew that it was his fault that he was wearing that expression.

Tony sighed, downed his whole cup of coffee and placed it on the counter loudly. If his silence was the reason for Steve looking like that then he could fix it.

Steve probably doesn’t know what he’d bargained for, though.

He turned and faced Steve fully, banning every emotion that wasn't casual out of his expression and went for a pressed smile instead. His best defense was after all still attack.

“Sometimes I wish the sun wouldn’t go down,” he stated, waiting for Steve to find his own context to that. Explaining feeling were hard. Harder than making vague statements anyway.

“You have nightmares again.” Steve nodded slightly with his words as to bring Tony to dismiss or confirm the answer.

“I don’t know,” Tony took a shuttering breath, feeling how his mask slipped off of his face, “I can’t tell if those dreams are just dreams. I’m back, Steve. I am back in my head but not in control. Not even riding shotgun; I’m locked in the trunk and all I can do it watch.”

Steve’s expression shifted to painfully sympathetic in the blink an eye, mouthing Oh, Tony like a silent prayer.

Damn right, _Oh, Tony_.

“I can see things. Stuff that I can’t put together. I can’t tell if it’s real or not, but it feels like it. So I’ll

be going out on a limb here and just tell you that I know that you know.”

Steve pulled his eyebrows up as if he honestly couldn’t figure out what Tony was talking about. It felt like mockery.

“You know that I know — what?” Steve prompted, looking to the world like a lost puppy.

Tony ground his teeth, he hated not to know what was going on in the other's mind. Why did he act like that?

“What else could I possibly be talking about?” Tony didn’t make much of an effort to keep the hurt out of his voice. He didn’t think Steve would mock him like this but he had gotten many things wrong in the past.

“I don’t know, Tony, that’s what I’m asking you.” Steve moved a bit closer to him, towering over him both like a warning and a defense mechanism at the same time.

“It had told you, I saw it,” Tony all but shouted out, losing his patience and also still feeling like he lost his mind. Couldn’t anybody be just open and honest with him, just once. “It told you that I loved you.”

The last part of his statement was nothing more than a whisper when his voice finally gave up and left him just staring at Steve. Waiting for him to explain something that could very well break Tony.

Steve stumbled a step back and stared at Tony as if he had just realized something. Tony would’ve given about anything in that moment to know what was going on in his head.

“What —”

Tony only nodded shorty, not knowing how such a little word could break his heart this much.

“You — it wasn’t lying?” Steve huffed out after a few more moments of silence. And hell, did Tony wish that he had said anything but that.

“What?” He answered breathless, begging every higher power that might or might not be listening to give him proof that he hadn’t just missed his chance for an easy out.

“I thought it was lying, Tony.” Tony huffed, yeah Steve sure had hoped it did. “I thought it was mocking me.” Steve looked him right in the eyes but still seemed really far away. “It had always told the others things to hurt them. Things only you knew so they wouldn’t question it right away. I had thought it was doing the same thing to me.”

Tony clenched his eyes together, trying to find the words to say while his brain went into blackout mode, “You — you.” Was finally the only thing that came past his lips.

Steve nodded nonetheless as if it had made all the sense in the world for him.

“I thought you had found out somehow and it used it against me.” Steve hunched over a bit, his crossed arms slowly slipping back to his sides, his shoulders hanging, “I am sorry.”

Tony blinked in a total of 26 times before he walked directly into Steve’s personal space and looked him right in the eyes.

“You love me,” he stated as if it was the only true thing he could ever say again.

Steve nodded as answer in a downright heartbreaking manner. “I don’t expect anything from you, Tony. You are in the middle of recovering and I didn’t want to make it harder on you. Like the others didn’t too. You hurt them.”

Tony flinched at those words to which Steve immediately shook his head.

“Not you hurt them. It did. We knew something was up with you but not even Jarvis could find out what it was and it was a mess, Tony. But you’re back and that’s all that matters.”

Tony tried to decide whether or not he was too tired to bring up the whole love thing again. Then he immediately shook his head. This too needed to be out in the open.

“My love for you is the only thing that I know for certain is real right now,” he whispered softly, not quite meeting Steve’s eyes anymore; hoping that this whole scene was real. Hoping that he wouldn’t wake up in the trunk of his own mind again.

“You don’t have to say that.” Steve let his head hang low, obviously trying to not show that he was hurting.

“I lie a lot, Steve. You know that. But I have never been more honest than I am right now,” Tony chuckled quietly and brushed Steve’s hair back from his forehead, “I’m beginning to think the 8th cup of coffee was a bad idea, look how cheesy I’ve gotten.”

Steve raised his head again meeting his eyes.

“You are serious.” It wasn’t a question, it was more of a breathless realization. Tony felt the need to answer anyway, “Yeah, caffeine really turns me into a sap.”

Steve pushed his hand away with a cooky grin, “Don’t be mean, Tony, you’re ruining it.”

Tony just put his hands back on both of Steve’s cheeks and kept the eye contact, the first real smile in months playing around his lips.

“I am serious. I love you. But I am also having a really hard time telling what is real and what isn’t right now. And I’ve got like a shit ton of nightmares trapped behind my eyelids.”

Steve’s features turned concerned again when he laid his hands on top of Tony’s, closing his eyes.

“Think we can work through that?”

“I don’t know,” Tony answered honestly. He really didn’t know if he’d ever feel the same again.

“Well, there hadn’t been anything we couldn’t beat together yet.”

Tony looked him up and down and then nodded slightly. “Yeah.”

Instead of answering Steve only leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against Tony’s, leaving him breathless for a good reason this time. When he pulled back he looked over Tony’s shoulder to the coffee cup on the counter, cocky grin in place.

“And seriously 8th cup? I am beginning to think Clint isn’t the only one with a serious coffee issue here.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'll post the next part tomorrow or Sunday. I hope you enjoyed it!  
> I would love to read your comment. :-)'  
> \- Nick


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